Electrics
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After the quick lash up of all the
electrics to get the engine started it was time to do the electrical install
properly. This was the one job I was most familiar with (BEng Electronic
Engineering CEng MIEE and all that :-) and had already spent a ½ day labelling
all the connectors on the donor loom by identifying them on the wiring diagram
in the service manual.
I decided that I would use only the
fuses and ignition bits of the loom as set about removing all the unwanted stuff
like signalling, instrumentation etc. This was quite a time consuming job and
basically involved stripping the sleeving off the loom and removing the wires
one at a time, being absolutely sure that they were not required by referring to
the wiring diagram. At the end of about a day’s work I had a big pile of wires
and connectors on the floor and a much smaller loom for the car. I also found a
mistake in the wiring diagram, which was a surprise!
As luck would have it, it was possible
to plug the remaining necessary connectors into the engine for TPS, alternator,
pickup coil, plugs, neutral etc and position the bulk of the electrics like the
main switch, main relay/fuse, Cdi, regulator and fusebox under the scuttle where
they would be protected from rain and heat. It was necessary to make up some new
battery leads from the battery, via a battery cutoff switch to the main
switch/fuse but this was no big deal. I made up a bracket out of some 18G
aluminium and found a way of mounting all the donor electrics on this in a neat
run with the regulator unit mounted to the aluminium scuttle and not jammed up
in a closed space to dissipate some of the heat. To this I added the necessary
relays for the signalling circuitry, which I built from scratch. As you might
imagine it took a fair few days and no less than 70m of thin wall cable to wire
all the necessary electrics in and to connect back into the bike loom fusebox
and necessary switches for ignition etc. The whole lot was bundled up in 10mm
trunking for the main runs to the rear of the car, to the engine and to the
front.
The final result is perhaps not quite as
neat as it could be under the dash, but everything is soldered or terminated
using proper uninsulated crimped terminals done with a ratchet tool and securely
fastened in place. Also due to the small confines I was trying to fit everything
into and the need to allow the dash to be removed there is a little slack in
there which makes it look a little untidy. Anyway it doesn’t show once you
screw the dash on!